Sarah Drew on reuniting with Grey's Anatomy ex Justin Bruening in a Lifetime Christmas movie
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It's time to start dreaming of a white Christmas — with a shade of Grey's.
In the new Lifetime Christmas movie Reindeer Games Homecoming, Grey's Anatomy alum Sarah Drew plays a bright high school biology teacher named MacKenzie who has a passion for solving crossword puzzles. But Mac loves tackling other sets of challenges, too. Ever since the death of her father, the town's fire chief who ran a popular holiday fundraiser called the Reindeer Games, she has competed with his retired colleagues to honor his memory. This year, though, there's a wrinkle in the action. Her former high-school-crush-turned-action-movie-star Chase has returned to town to help out his pregnant sister, and sure enough, he winds up in the middle of the candy-coated chaos, competing against her. Will he win something more important than the Games... [checks notes]... her heart? Let's stop asking questions we already know the answer to.
Lifetime Justin Bruening and Sarah Drew in 'Reindeer Games Homecoming'
Drew — who wrote the screenplay and serves as an executive producer on Reindeer Games — isn't just acting opposite just any leading man here. She tapped someone else you also might recognize from Grey's: Justin Bruening, one of her former onscreen romances. "Not only is he just a great actor, he's perfect for this role in every way," she tells EW. "We have great chemistry together. And on top of all that, he's such an incredible team player. And I knew that I was going to need someone that was just on my team and ready to dive in and be a total team player. And he was. We had such a blast together. We have a very similar way that we navigate through character journey stuff."
They've already navigated more than one journey on the same romantic team, having played husband and wife in the 2018 wartime drama Indivisible, which Drew executive produced. Although she was going for the three-peat, she wasn't interested in reviving past dynamics. And she hopes that this pairing provides as much humor as heart. "Mac and Chase are super different from April and Matthew [on Grey's], and are super different from the Turners [in Indivisible]," she says. "A lot of times people don't give Justin the opportunity to be funny, but he really is very funny. I wanted to allow him to spread his wings in that way and tap into that side in this rom-com, a movie that isn't heavy laden with drama, which is what both of our previous projects were. Matthew was an interesting character, but I think Chase has a lot more grit and more layers to him. And we wanted to tap into that as well. So, it's a very fun, different relationship that I think will be a pleasant surprise for the audience."
While this movie may have a twinkly Christmas backdrop, Drew didn't set out to write a Yuletide flick for her writing debut. She says she was simply trying to conjure up a retro romantic comedy. "Reindeer Games Homecoming is a bit nostalgic in that it hearkens back to my favorite rom-coms of the '90s and early 2000s," says the actress. "And it's nostalgic also because we're taking these characters back in time to their high school days. It feels like a little trip down memory lane. What's really lovely about Reindeer Games and these two characters is that they know each other very, very well. They have history and a deep friendship that you immediately lock into as soon as you see them on screen together. So you're rooting for them from the beginning. You don't have the stolen looks, the 'Will they or won't they?' It's really just like: These people are meant to be together. How's it all gonna play out?"
With plenty of games. "There's some really fun set pieces to Reindeer Games that you won't get on other Christmas movies," says Drew, whose previous Yuletide film credits include 2018's Christmas Pen Pals, 2019's Twinkle All the Way, and 2020's Christmas in Vienna. "There are big events that are super fun and super joyous and really funny." As you'll see in the exclusive clip below, Mac has to all but drag Chase into the polar plunge. "The water was so cold," she says of filming, which took place in April in Ottawa. "The day itself that we shot that scene, the sun had come out and it was a really warm day, but by the time we had to run into the water, the sun had gone down. So I was ready to dive in when it was really warm and the sun was blazing, but I was not as excited to go in after the sun went down. So we had a role reversal. He was trying to psych me up to get in the water and I was freaking out. It was very cold. Once you get in, it's really a mind-over-matter thing."
The hockey game also proved to be a bit of a challenge. "I found it hilarious watching the dailies after shooting that day because I'm desperately out of shape, in terms of just having no cardio in my life," she says with a laugh. "And when we were shooting the hockey sequences, [director Brian Herzlinger] was just like, 'Just play hockey for a couple minutes! Just get excited and celebrate!' It wasn't specific sequences. Everybody was mic'd, but the only person you hear panting in the dailies is me. I was like, 'Okay, I need to go home and get into some sort of cardio rhythm because this is not acceptable.'"
Drew seems just fine to keep her heart rate up with Bruening for years to come. "He's totally a work husband," she says. "I know we'll work together again. We are already coming up with ideas of stuff to do together again. We love working together. It's so fun. And finding ways to make the pairing different and to make the characters different and make the energy different is a fun challenge as well. But we have a blast. It's so easy to work with him. And I always know that I'm gonna have an incredibly supportive ally on set with me. When you hire someone you don't know if that's going to be the case. I'd love to make movies with my friends forever. It's just so much fun.'"
The Reindeer Games begin Nov. 12 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Lifetime.
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